In previous times for the people of God that we see in scripture, learning to both reflect back on how God has walked with us and discerning what is ahead that God is guiding us through brings with it important communal practices. Perhaps surprisingly, these can be full of complicated emotions rather than just triumphalist. We can not only trust that God will help us process through emotions of mourning or worry or repentance, but also that God will likely call us to hold our expectations loosely to be formed to the Kingdom as well - and that while that may be difficult, it is still safe… and essential for our discipleship and full experiencing of the thriving of salvation life.

Our church is entering an intriguing year as we continue to follow God’s calling of our unique identity - celebrating a legacy of 90 years as a local body, and also discerning how best to live our faith in a year promising new circumstances and resources to steward. The Bible has examples of God’s people navigating relatable (even if not exact) circumstances, like the Jewish people returning from exile to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. We can take encouragement in being able to hear from God timeless insight from such examples for our specific situations - especially about connecting with God, understanding our circumstances, and partnering with others.

Even early in his life, Jesus showed passion for being in his Father’s house, or perhaps better rendered, “being about the family business.” Since we are also invited into God’s family and to participate in the Kingdom through Jesus, the same values and practices that Jesus demonstrated (and have foundations throughout the history of God’s people) are important for our lives and faith today, too - so we can be faithful participants in the family business as well.

January 3 is Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus and it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the meaning of Jesus in our lives and in the world. Advent season reminds us that we use a range of names and titles to refer to Jesus, and to God, to try to reflect the breadth and depth of God’s character and how God works. Jesus also cared a lot about making sure disciples understood what those names are really meant to express and reflect so we are being formed by God rather than making God in our image. Those temptations can still be with us today, but so are the clarifying principles of God’s character

Genealogies can seem like dry reading, but in the bible, they can serve as really insightful examples of God’s character based on how different people are included in God’s identity that we might normally think would be expected to be relegated to skeletons in a family closet. When we see this meaning, and think about what that means for us that are also invited to be a part of God’s family, it can be transformational for our sense of self and how we extend belonging to those around us.

There is a slightly between the lines, but incredibly vital and compelling thread of comparison that weaves through the birth narratives of Jesus. We can see very different values of power and glory and authority in the contrasts like Joseph of the house and line of David and Caesar Augustus… and the Magi and King Herod. They help emphasize the difference between the humility, grace, love and lifting up in the salvation that God offers, and the oppression, advantage, exploitation and dehumanization of earthly rulers that claim to be best. And so we must also wrestle with the comparison of who we sometimes desire Jesus to be - in the image of such earthly rulers - and who Jesus actually came to be - which will transform our expectations, our values, our lives and all creation.

We most associate Joy with happiness and excitement, but God promises a persevering tool even deeper than regular emotions in how Joy can function in our lives. It helps root us in our reliance on God’s faithfulness in all circumstances that can bring meaning, resilience and hope as we go through anything. Jesus arrival in the world with all of its ups and downs is our greatest source and example of this Joy.

Some of our favorite Advent carols can be a little bit sappy when it comes to describing Jesus - like saying he didn’t cry as a baby, or had beams of light coming off his face. We can appreciate the artistic license, but maybe it also reveals something about our human struggles: it is hard for us to love in struggle and imperfection, so we can seek to prop up people and things in our eyes to make them easier to love. It is striking that Jesus himself shows how God does not have to do that for us, even if we do that a little for our perception of Emmanuel. How amazing that God loves us in our struggle, weakness and sin, and also sees the best in us to transform us and include us in the Kingdom.

As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s words in “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” honestly reflect, the world persistently works against peace and towards dominance and chaos. In the arrival of the Prince of Peace, we can still see how God’s peace perseveres and transforms unconquerably, though. While the privileged “peace through destruction and elimination” cycles between forces fighting to be at the top, those practicing care, solidarity and dignity for the downtrodden have never been defeated. And while empire always tries to take and accumulate more and more for its own comfort, it has never spread as far as the generosity and hope of those knowing another way of life is possible.

In general, we don’t normally tend to put our hopes and expectations on things without some level of impressiveness or dominance as proof concept. Yet God’s chosen arrival was vulnerable and amongst conquered people, and seems to care about a whole different way of defining power and what is important. It is encouraging when we feel like the least to be seen and have hope for something more, but can we also hope that our salvation comes the least and the last (at least as the world defines things)?

Faith calls us to follow and put our faith in God, but scripture also shows how frequently any of us, and even (and sometimes especially) those who are zealous in their excitement in seeing what God can do and in declarations of how great they think God is need to have their understandings of God converted from projections based on personal privilege and earthly power to the real values of the Kingdom. This is especially clear in times in the gospels Jesus lays bare that the question we must ask ourselves is not “Will I say Jesus is king?” but “Will I actually follow the kind of king Jesus really is?”

We know in faith that the balance of grace, empathy and forgiveness alongside justice, accountability and transformation can often feel difficult - with people regularly pushing towards assumptions in one direction or another. One oft quoted phrase in discerning this is Jesus statement to the woman caught in adultery he protected from those who had to face if they were without sin before stoning her: “go now and leave your life of sin.” We might hold to this as an excuse to remain in judgment, but what of the possibility that the emphasis is on dignity, freedom and new possibility in God’s Kingdom that can be looked forward to and lived into rather than shame or finding ways to lord over others?

A significant part of the amazing work of salvation is how God is pulling together a beloved community in the Kingdom of all different kinds of people - being reconciled to God and each other. However, that’s not always easy for us when people we might distrust and be worried about are included in that group. God has been doing this throughout history with God’s people, though, and we can participate in the process of redemption and trust God offers to experience that transformation for the thriving of us and all creation.

There are often a range of divergent voices claiming to represent God aiming to lay out what God cares most about, what the thriving God moves for looks like, and who gets to experience that as part of God’s people. This has been true going back to all the circumstances we read about in the Bible as well. And the Bible consistently shows what the people of God are encouraged towards and what the people of God are convicted about for misplaced priorities, yet we can still be tempted towards those same issues the Bible points people away from. Can we care enough about our faithful connection with God and our participation in the salvation life of the Kingdom to hear what faith expressions we may still need to turn from, and trust in the value of what God calls us to turn to - even if it may not seem as comfortable, flashy, or powerful as other options claiming to represent God?

Conversion is meant to have dramatic impact in our lives - throughout our lives as we’re called and formed to more faithfulness to God and experience of salvation life. We can focus mostly on positive feelings with this, but it is true that there are also things in our lives that we are tempted to hold onto, but that should be let go of and cut out for what is best. Sometimes folks have taken to calling some of God’s values coming to bear in our lives “toxic,” but that misses the point that God’s love and grace should be toxic to the parts of ourselves that get in the way of loving like God loves and experiencing the diverse community who are often overlooked that God’s Kingdom brings together.

We all are prone to looking to people that we can admire and be inspired by to help push towards our values, and that can even influence our sense of identity. There are plenty of examples of this in society, and we also may have figures of faith we look to in the Bible. This can sometimes take the form of viewing people as heroes that need to escape question or critique, and yet the Bible doesn’t do this with examples of faith - instead being honest about failure and frailty and encouraging us to see substantive faith of repentance, conversion, making things right and humbling continuing to be formed in the values of God’s Kingdom as we recognize our failures to live up to it. Can these values influence how we admire anyone and allow people to influence our values and sense of self?

Some people do have very dramatic conversion stories for their initial commitment to following God in their lives. Others may grow up in the church and not have such a big before and after. As we continue in faith, though, the dramatic transformation that faith is meant to have on our lives - including ongoing conversions for more faithfulness - can be taken for granted and normalized. Being “born again” or joining a whole new people group is a big deal, though, even if the language doesn’t have as much shock value today. Are we willing to let continued conversion to God’s values be as dramatic in our lives as that when it needs to be? Are we able to set our other identities and allegiances aside so they always come second to God’s values and we use God’s values to measure those camps, parties, and groups that expect us to go along and judge and ostracize those in other groups even though God also loves and includes them? It’s not the norm now, but it is implicit to salvation and Kingdom life.

It is commonly celebrated how conversion turns us away from what is in conflict with God and reconcile in relationship for our salvation. Sometimes we can mistakenly reduce this impact to something about only what we mentally agree with or feelings we have about God, but the examples of conversion in scripture also have concrete impact on people’s day to day choices, actions and lives as God brings the Kingdom more on earth as it is in heaven - for individuals and communities and creation. How can we faithfully pursue the conversions we need for that same impact and scope?

Conversion is a central idea to Christianity, but it can often get a fairly narrow conception or application. While the initial commitment to living life faithfully with God is vital, the Bible consistently shows continued conversions even of those who have been following God to be continually formed to be more faithful to God’s values. The prophet Jonah and the leaders of the early church responding to the question of how to integrate Gentile believers offer two very different examples of how to respond to these ongoing invitations to transformative conversion that we can learn from for living out our own faithfulness.

God has always moved within communities of God’s people with certain key values that help bind us together and form us to more fully participate in and embody the Kingdom. It is good to find opportunities to re-root ourselves in those values, show appreciation for ways people have committed themselves to the values that God has used for our edification, and to find inspiration for how to persevere together as God leads us. This was a great chance to be able to do that together.